Spring flooding is always a problem. The Erie Canal, which by this time was being called the Barge Canal, uses feeders from creeks to fill it each year. It is emptied each fall and the same system can be used if the canal gets too high from spring floods. But if the creeks are also too high, it is difficult to release water from the canal.

THE BROCKPORT REPUBLIC

Thursday, May 18, 1916

GREATEST IN 16 YEARS

Rainfall Floods Streets, Gardens, Fields Doing Much Damage

Up until six o’clock Tuesday evening Brockport had experienced in twenty-four hours 2.32 inches, the heaviest rainfall registered here in sixteen tears. Streets were running rivers, gardens were isolated lakes and several different places about the village six inches of water was running over the sidewalks. On Monday evening the lightning struck in two different places in the northern part of the village, it is reported. At the Bort property on Fayette street, occupied by Mrs. Mabel Allen, the lightning struck the ridge pole of the barn tearing off tearing off the shingles and the back of the barn was splintered. Some of the splinters were carried nearly eighty feet away and lodged in the top of a beach tree. The same night an apple tree in front of the Pitts residence on East avenue was shattered. the shock also broke one of the windows of the house near which a member of the family was standing..

Early Tuesday afternoon Barge Canal Division Sperintendent H. A. Kuntze was notified of a leak in the canal near the East Lake bridge. He soon had a force of men on the scene and the danger was averted A cloudburst at Brockville, near Holley caused the canal to overflow and a large territory was flooded and the culvert near there injured. Men were sen out to ope every waste weir between Lockport and Holley. but because almost every creek was filled with surface water, it was difficult to spill any great quantity, without flooding the surrounding country.

There was from sixteen to twenty feet of water in Holley Glen last night which under normal conditions is only a few inches deep.

Yesterday morning it was reported that Brockport’s auxiliary sewage disposal plant, in the process of construction was partially destroyed by the rains of Tuesday night. A considerable portion of the wall of the big vat caved in carrying with it tons of cement work only recently completed by the contractors. This is a serious set back for the village as the old plant is entirely inadequate and it was hoped to have the new work soon in readiness for use.